


Sherlock Holmes - How I meet Sherlock Holmes

by Samstown4077



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes - fandom
Genre: Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Humour, I swear it is not all childish, No Romance, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:31:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samstown4077/pseuds/Samstown4077
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Did you ever want to meet Sherlock Holmes? Here is your chance. Waking up in the late 19th century in 221b. Unsure where you are, unsure how you came here, you realize quickly that this man in front of you reminds you of someone important. A Sherlock Holmes/You story. It actually has a plot!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this idea a long while ago and it laid in my drawer for a while. I am not English, so it is not perfect, but I decided to give a damn and did post it anyway. The chapter breaks are more or less random, I just wanted to keep them readable in length. Hope you enjoy. Oh, and you can imagine every Holmes you want, myself has imagined Jeremy Brett. The description of him is obvious but unclear too.

It is already a late evening, and I am very tired, but I have to write down these words before the events, I want to capture, will start to vanish from my mind. There is no doubt that most of the readers will not believe my written words. This is a fact, so I assume, I have to live with. I wouldn’t believe the story, if I hadn't experienced it myself. Nevertheless, I am sure that this piece of paper will find its admirers and believers.

These persons I can aver that every word is true.

The story began on a late Saturday morning last year. I had slept into the day and was woken up when my cell phone rang.

 

A friend of mine is reminding me about a meeting for the cinema.

"What time is it?" I am asking sleepily.

"We will be there in an hour. You have to hurry!"

"An hour? Shit-", the moment I hang up, is the moment I jump out of my bed.

I have no time for taking a shower, so I just have a quick wash, before hopping into some casual cloth. I am agitated, jumpy and still drowsy. It’s not my usual behavior to oversleep. Spinning around a few times I grab my belongings; my purse and the cell phone to shove them into my jacket. A glance toward the watch on my desk is telling me I have only minutes left till the bus arrives which shall take me to the cinema.

"Quick!" I call out to myself, leaving my room, running downstairs to the front door.

 

The next thing I remember, is a very persistent feeling of hurt and confusion. Everything is black around me; my forehead aches like someone had beaten me up with a brick. A long moan escapes my mouth and I realize the sound of a voice in the room. I am not alone anymore.

"I think she wakes up," it's an elderly sounding female voice, as far as I can recognise. Somebody else gives an acquiescent hum to her remark.

I am afraid to open my eyes yet; moreover my eyelids feel heavy which makes the decision easy to keep them close for a couple more minutes, to calm myself down. I try to sense my surroundings. My hands can feel the softness of a sofa; my hearing is telling me there is a crackling fire in the room. _‘Hopefully in a fireplace.’_

"Sal volatile," a deep calm voice says- a man.

I repeat the two words in my head, but they don't make any sense to me. They sound like Latin, for me a dead language I can't speak anyhow. I decide, I just have misheard something, when a strong, sharp smell creeps into my nose and brain.

My reaction is an exclamation of disgust. I am somehow sure that's quite the reaction this _"Sal volatile"_ should engender, because the elder lady comments my response with something like: "It helps."

I start to open my eyes slowly, only to note that I can see nothing but a blur. Like looking through a camera adjusted on wrong asperity. I start to blink, to resettle my field of vision. In fact, it helps. The blurry picture in front of me starts to compose to a clear figure. When I have my vision back, I am staring into a pair of dark coloured piercing eyes. Barely blinking. The eyes belong to the male person I heard earlier. A slender physiognomy with a sharp nose, edgy cheekbones and dark combed-back hair. His thin lips are pressed together in eager anticipation.

After I take all these details in, a strong certainty rises in me that I should know this person. Nonetheless, I can't place him. He is not one of my neighbours; nor a colleague; nor someone I work for.

"Miss," the elder voice causes me to jerk in her direction, "are you feeling alright again?"

She has grey hair, and is at least beyond fifty-five. Her presence confers a mild and warm impact on me. She seems very worried about my current state, I can see it in her eyes. At this state of point, I have the feeling that something is wrong. With her, and the room - with everything.

"I… I am…," I start to mumble.

  
The words in my throat get stuck when my eyes start to wander around. The room doesn't look like an ordinary room to me. Pictures on the wall, all painted, not one photographed. A carpeted floor. A fireplace in front of us, with the crackling fire in it. Two armchairs and a sofa on which I lie. Someone would say that this is nothing remarkable, but I can assure you it is. The furniture, the pictures, the bits and pieces I can recognize, they are familiar unfamiliar to me. On the one hand because I have never been in this room before, but it looks familiar to me. On the other side, everything in this room seems to be strikingly different to what I know.

Then it strikes me. Old. The word I am looking for in my head is: old. The carpet, the armchairs, the fireplace, the pictures and the cloth of these two people in front of me are old. Victorian like. Out of a sudden I feel like in a theatre play.

"W- where am I?" I try to bring myself in a more upright position. Not without noticing that my forehead and face are still hurting.

I groan again, placing my hand on my forehead and my nose. My eyes are settling down onto the man in front of me, still unsure why he looks so familiar to me. He just stands there, his hands behind his back, trying to plumb me with his piercing eyes.

The elder lady hands me something that looks like an ice bag. By instinct I take it, to press it on my skin not without giving the bag a bewildered look.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," the man nods to her. "I think that will do it for now."

"But-," the woman wants to object, but the tall man in front of me hushes her.

"Mrs. Hudson!" he calls out demanding.

"Mrs. Hudson?" I blurt out, while I glare at her - like I just have figured out something important.

The woman stops from leaving, looking first at me and then over to the nameless man by the fireplace. He nods again and orders the woman with a gesture to leave him alone with me. For a second I am afraid of being alone with him and my eyes are asking the woman for some kind of help. She seems to understand my looks and is giving me an encouraging smile. When the door closes, I look back to the man.

He is wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a vest. It suits his slim, tall figure - no question. He looks so very British that I have to give away a single nervous laugh. When I do, his eyebrows wiggle for just a moment, but there are no words he addresses to me.

My face is now so cold that I barely feel it anymore, so I lay the ice bag aside on a little table which looks old too. I rub my fingertips over its top and the feeling it has is not old. What baffles me.

"Where am I? How do I come here?" I ask again.

"It seems you run against our door," he says, "Mrs. Hudson heard a loud banging outside. The next what she found was you, lying on the ground."

I recapitulate his words in my head. "I ran against you door? Why would I do this?"

"You tell me, Miss."

The way he addresses me makes me nervous again, and again I have the feeling that something in this room is not in the proper place.

"What is it, Miss?" The man has seen my restless looks around the room.

"Would you mind telling me where I am and who you are?"

"This is 221b Baker Street, and my name is Sherlock Holmes."


	2. Chapter 2

I blink a few times. The urge in my legs to stand up is now no more repressible. Quickly I jump up, not without a ache in my head, and step behind the sofa to bring some distance between me and the guy in front of me.

"This is a joke, right? You are kidding me," I gesture with my hands around the room.

The man calling himself Sherlock Holmes frowns at me, "I can assure you, I do not beguile you."

"Beguile?" I burst out loud, wrinkling my nose. I know the words meaning, but I never knew anyone who ever has used it. Not even one of my English teachers.

"A more proper word for bluffing," he says in a way, like I am stupid. I feel the need to defend this wrong appeal, but I have the more important feeling there are better things to sort out now.

"Wait a minute, will ya?" I am so confused; I drift away into my usual language slang. "Sherlock Holmes. Oh yeah, sure! That's hidden camera right?" I am close to freak out completely. "Where is it? I can't see any," I turn around a few times before facing him again. "Very, very good. But sorry, you made up all this, for nothing."

Now it's his time to recapitulate the words I have spoken in his mind.

"I suggest you better sit down."

"Why?"

"Sit down, woman!" sweepingly his arms gestures out and his hand commands me down to the sofa. No objections allowed. So I sit down again. "It seems the bang against the hard wood has atomised your sound mind."

The way he chooses his words scares me. I am not able to say if he just has insulted me or not. "Why are you saying that?"

"Clearly you talking all rubbish. Not a word in your mouth I have understood. Hidden camera? What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, you should clearly watch the show more often you work for, Mister."  
The man makes two strides to me and places one of his thin, agile hands on my forehead. "You have no sign for high temperature, so I can't explain your gibberish with fever."

"I assure you I have no fever!" I say. Yet I am not really sure, so I control my forehead myself. I am warm, but there is no fever.

I feel awkward and after roaming through the room with my eyes again, with no signs of cameras or any electronic I have first doubts about the hidden camera thing. It appears to me, that this might be a joke of some of my friends.

"Did one of my friends hire you for doing this?" I ask him.

It seems to amuse him. "I am sorry, Miss. I don't know your friends, and as far as I know, no one has hired me to play this farce with you." I can feel that he starts to get impatient and angry. "After not esteeming our treatment to you, and after being so effervescing," he walks past me, and opens the door - my mind still works on the word _effervescing_ , "you may leave now."

In trance I stand up, walking to the door. Before stepping into the floor I stop for a short moment, looking him into his eyes. His expression is without any emotion. Only his eyes show a slight spark, a kind of interest so I interpret. He waves impatiently with his hand to tell me I have to leave the room. So I do. The door goes shut behind me with a bang.

Disconcert I stand there. The floor looks like the room in the inside. Lots of fabric everywhere. Old framed drawings, faintly photographs hanging on the wall. A carpet again. I can't remember when it was the last time I have seen a house with such a surplus of fluffy carpet.

 _‘This house needs laminate.'_ I think before turning around again, reentering the door I just have been thrown out.

The Sherlock Holmes double stands at the fireplace, igniting a pipe. He turns around on my entrance, and I am sure he will scold me for it. But he does not. Now I am sure, that the spark in his eyes I saw just moments ago, was applied to me.

"May you have the gracefulness to tell me who you are, Miss?" he asks me and I am telling him my name.

"And you are?"

"I already announced myself," he just says, inhaling the pipe a few times to inflame the glow.

Slowly I start to wander around in the room. "Sherlock Holmes… come on, we both know, there is no Sherlock Holmes. So stop sticking to this name!"

"Your choice of words is very anomalous."

"You tell me!"

He watches me while I walk around. My eyes flicker over some handwritten papers. Some are typed with an old typewriter. The paper looks odd to me. I can see some pencils, an old pen that looks like a quill. I take one in my hand and do as if I would write something in the air.

"What are you doing?"

The question makes me smile for a second. "I play you," I say, "I make deductions!"  
I huff out in confidence that I have made a good joke. That nevertheless makes him snicker.

"You make deductions?" he claps his hands together, while having the pipe in his mouth, "Then tell me what you see!"

I swallow; I haven't expected this reaction. However I try to please him the best way I can. I turn around, shoving my hands into my denims pockets and start:  
"First I thought you are an actor or an ambitioned amateur, who's job it is to play this figure of Sherlock Holmes," he races an eyebrow again, smiling an sardonic smile at me, "I mean look at you," and so he does with an expansive gesture, "you are perfect. Tall, slim and a wiry figure. Extraordinary cheekbones – the one you can cut your hands on. Clear-cut nose. Like Conan Doyle has used _you_ , to write – to carve - his Sherlock," he wants to say something, but for a moment I find the confidence to cut him off. "But! You are not an actor. I think now you are just a man, eccentric, possessed by the figure of Sherlock Holmes, hoarding all this old stuff, even in the hallway, even your… mother, friend… this woman downstairs, addressing her as Mrs. Hudson. To make the story short; my deduction is just one:" I point with one finger in the air.

He gestures me to go one, still giving this smile to me.

"I am sorry to say so; but I think you are just nuts!" I stop aside from his desk where I can see a paper knife. Right now there is no doubt that this man is a criminal worse a murderer.

The man in front of me looks at me for some moments before bursting out into laughter.  
"Splendid! Splendid! Oh, Watson, I almost forgot you have a fine sense of humour. Marvellous!" he says. His face is directed to someone invisible in the room.

"Listen Mister, whatever you are planning or playing, I have my phone with me, and I will call the police."

Holmes abruptly stops laughing. "I can see in your face, that there is a quite misunderstanding. It seems each of us is talking past each other."

"Listen man, you are scaring me! You really do. I can't remember how I came here. I just can remember that I wanted to go to the cinema with friends. I was late, so I hurried myself down the stairs, to my front door, and the next thing I knew is that I woke up here. Hurt face. Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock Holmes telling me, I am at Baker Street," I am close to a nervous breakdown and just babble along every fact I can remember, "but I can assure you buddy, there is no Baker Street, no Mrs. Hudson and no Sherlock Holmes!" The last part I almost yell.

"So this is your story," he is now calm and his eyes are awake, like he is sensing a danger, and I can see that he does not understand my whole story.

"What is your story?" I ask.

"Like I said; we found you outside the front door. We brought you up here. We waited till you woke up again. The rest of the story you know, Miss. I can only appeal urgently that my name is Sherlock Holmes, this is Baker Street 221b and the woman downstairs is sometimes acting like my mother, but - and here I am very clear - she is my housekeeper and landlady."

The way he repeats his story calms me down a bit. I consider him long. There is no sign of a lie on him. No sign of a madman. I only can see honesty.

"It's impossible," I whisper. "You really want to tell me, this is Baker Street and you are Sherlock Holmes and this is… uhm… what 1887? Ha!"

"Quite correct."

"This can not be!" I cry out, stepping to the window to look outside. What I see makes me shaky. I see old Victorian houses. Horses leashed to carts. Carriages. At least two dozen of people strolling up and down the street. Women dressed in expensive gowns. Men dressed in suits, with hats. I open the window in shock, and my shock increases when I look down the street. As far as my eyes can see, I only see 1887.


	3. Chapter 3

I spin around, stepping to the sofa, to reach into the pockets of my jacket. My Smartphone, it's still there. My fingers are sliding over the screen to unlock it. I want to dial the number of my parents, but there is no connection. The phone is dead. Like people in an old film, I start to wander around in the room to find some network. All under the attentive looks of a man, calling himself Sherlock Holmes.

Unable to find a connection I turn around. "Do you have a phone? Can I use it, please?" I beg.  
"You mean a telephone. The only telephone around the next five miles is the one down the post office," he explains to me.

"What? I do not understand. You do not have a phone?"

He shakes his head in lack of understanding. "What is this in your hand?"

"A phone! A Smartphone!" I throw the words toward him without even thinking.

"Can I see it?"

"No, you can not," I plunge it back into my pocket, and then I step as close as I trust myself to him. "Please, tell me the truth. What date do we have? And I can only implore you; do not lie to me. I am really having a breakdown here!"

He sighs. "I thought you were sent by Watson, my dear friend Doctor Watson. He is now married and we do not see each other often. So I first believed, that he was up for a hoax. For some amusement and as a compensation for the time we did not see each other. I am aware now, that you are not sent by him. You are not sent by anyone," I couldn't come through, that his voice was very keen but soft now. His warm baritone lulls me in. "I swear an oath to it that this is the twenty first of March this year."

"What year?" I ask quickly.

"1887."

I step back to the sofa and plunge on it. "Alright." It is the only thing I can say.  
If this is a joke, it is very well played. If this is a dream, it is a very realistic dream. Maybe a car has hit me, and now I am lying in a coma at the hospital. Or I am dead. Each possibility for itself is not really worth aspiring to, but the conclusion in the end to be here in 1887 with Sherlock Holmes is not so bad at all.

"After I answered all your questions, I am very eager to ask some questions of my own," he settles himself down in the armchair across me; his fingertips consolidate together in front of him.

I feel drowsy again, astonished from the situation, so I just give him a short glance and a wave with my hand.

"While we talked, you used words and names that have no meaning to me yet. What you call a cinema?"

"A place where they show mo-," I stop. Movies and cinemas are not invented yet. "Plays. Another word for theater."

"Smart… phone, you said it's the thing in your pocket."

A take it out of my coat again, it still doesn't have any network connection so I decide to shut it down. "You mean this?" when it goes of, it plays a little melody and Sherlock jumps up from his seat like a cat.

"What is this? It has music in it," I can see in his eyes that he is eager to know more about my phone. For a second I want to give it to him, but then it appears to me, that this is maybe not a good idea.

"I am very sorry, I don't think I can give you this. It's nothing. Like a little small brick out of glass and metal. See!" I shake it in front of him, before I put it away again.

I can see the disappointment in his eyes, however he has an extraordinary self-control, and so he sits back into the armchair, placing his hands back together, deeply unimpressed.

"Who is Conan Doyle?" he asks then, and he asks it with such innocence that I am convinced he really does not know.

"Arthur Conan Doyle. A writer."

"Never heard of him. He wrote anything good?"

I chuckle. "Detective Stories. Like Watson does."

"It's Doctor Watson for you,” he corrects me sharply. “How do you know about his writings?"

"I read some of Doctor Watson's stories."

Sherlock frowns again his forehead. Something in my words is concerning him.

"So you read some of Doctor Watson's publications?"

"Yes." I say. _‘All of them, several times.'_ I think.

"Then it seems rather unclear to me, why you doubt my existence," he leans into my direction, examining me.

I know I have to be aware what I will say to him. This man cannot be tricked. I take my time before answering. Surely this all could be a dream, a very precise dream or coma. While thinking about my words, it comes to me that this - as ridiculous as it looks like - is real. He. This room. All of it. Minding this fact, I have to give a deliberate answer.

"I never thought this stories were real," I decide to keep it simple. My words are not even a lie. Holmes just makes a short impression with his face, what occurs to me like he is wondering. So I add; "you have to know, I am not from here. Where I come from, most people think you are some kind of … fiction."

"Fiction? Ha!" he laughs out loud, somehow as he desires back the old days, when his person was an innominate consulting detective.

"Well, that explains a drop," he says. "My last question pertain your wearing apparel."

I look down at myself. I am wearing a dark blue shirt, with some print on it, a dark jeans and some maroon coloured chucks. Promptly I make a comparison between my cloth and his. The feeling I had earlier comes back. That something is not in the proper place. Now, I know what it is. I know who it is. It is me.

Assuredly I conceal my discovery badly and before I answer him, I already know, he will see that I will have lied. "What's with my wearing?"

Holmes is giving me an amused but charitable look. "Pray, consider!" he says to me a little louder as usual.

When he says this phrase I have to smile. All this years I read and reread the Sherlock Holmes stories, I always have admired the moment in the books, when he uses the word pray for explain. Till this moment, I have never heard someone use this word in such perfection. I guess I look some kind of bewildered to him, because he adds; "It means; think about your words again, Miss."

"I.. I know what it means," I feel stupid now, "I just..." I don't know what to say, so I return back to the subject, "I know it's unusual. Like I said where I come from-"

Out of a sudden Holmes cuts me off, whilst he pushes himself from the armchair into my direction, placing his hands and arms on each side of me. One hand on the armrest, the other onto the backrest. I am in between, straitened.

"I am losing my endurance with you. Your words are not as wise as you have planed them to be," a gulp of hold air escapes my lunges when he steps away again. "Inevitably I have to ask you; where are you from? The question you desperately want to bypass."

"How do you know?"

Sherlock huffs contemptuous at me. "If I would wake up in a place I do not know, carrying around peculiar items and would wear these kind of cloth, I would be concerned. You are concerned! You know, you are somewhere you obviously do not belong. At the beginning of this highly amusing conversation, you deliberated that I would be a criminal, by spying out this paper knife here. For self-defence," he holds it up to me, before seating down again in his armchair. "If I would be in your position; I would desperately try to avoid the question of my come of. Since the answer to this question will educe further questions. On the other side, your come of would explain a lot of the contradictions that linger here. A little dispute."

I am overrun by his deduction speech. He can see in the expression of my face that he is right from the whole beginning. After reading all the stories, knowing all the TV-Shows, I am, after all, stunned.

"You are right, Mister Holmes. Amazingly right,” I say quietly. “I wish I could tell you more about me, but I have the feeling I better don't. So please stop asking me where I come from. If you so eager to know where I do come from, maybe we both can agree that I am from the new continent - America. If this not will please; I can only advice you to deduce it, but out of me, you will not tempt any further word."

With the calm way I declaim my words to him, I surprise myself. Math maybe never will save my bottom, but reading all this novels has given me the confidence I just need.

"I already made my deduction about your cloth. When you were unconscious. Especially about your trousers. Since a view years, miners in America wear this kind of denim for work. The problem is, you not a miner, beside you are a woman, your hands don't show any sign of influencing hard work. A miner is very easy to expose. You are not one. These trousers don't look like the usual ones, I have seen some down the docks at the pier. These one seem to be - how shall I say - advanced. Then," he raises one finger, "your shoes. Some kind of slippers. Very brash in its colour. The emblem says Converse. I made a short research in my books."

"Let me take a guess, you couldn't find anything," I say, while my glances sheepishly searching the floor.

"No."

"There are not invented yet. I mean… uhm.. It's a preproduction model."

Holmes just nods. I am sure, he knows that my saying about being out of the states (in this time) is a lie; nevertheless, he does not want to push the subject further.

"What now?"

"I don't know, Mister Holmes." Despair spreads out in me. The memory of all my friends and my parents arises in my head, and I feel highly sad. "I really do not know."

"Is there somebody we can call for?"

"I am afraid not. There is nobody I have. Not yet." I have nowhere to go, I have nowhere to stay, and now, my situation feels no more so good as in the beginning.

Mrs. Hudson returns with tea, and places the dish on the little table besides me. I thank her with a short smile.

"Mrs. Hudson, after Doctor Watson has left us, I think we have a room to spare."

"Oh, of course, we have," she knows more than me in this moment.

"She will stay for a while."

"I do?" I jump up, "Sherlock!.. Holmes.. Mister Holmes!" my words pitch pole, "I am... so... thank you."

"You stay here, till we get you back where you belong," he starts to fill up a new pipe while his glances wander over me again, "I advise you to change your cloth. You engage attention like a paradise bird."

"It's the only thing I have."

"I do not know where you come from, although I assume, you buy your cloth in some kind of store."

I can stop myself, before telling him about Internet shopping. "So I buy new one. Simple," I grab for my moneybag and open it. I have not much money with me. "This maybe sounds … bemusing. How much do you think it would cost to buy a new set of cloth?"

I earn interrogating looks from both of them.

"It's the question what you want to buy, Miss," Mrs. Hudson starts. "A nice looking dress- "

I cut in. "No dress!"

"You are a lady!" she insists, and of course I am well aware what times we have right now, but I just can't walk around in a gown like the princess of Sheba.

"I will not wear a dress."

"What you want then, Miss?"

"Trousers."

"You will look like a boy," she answers me startled.

"Mrs. Hudson," Holmes tampers in, "we not want to take her out to the evenings dance. So I construct, she shall wear what ever she wants. Something simple may will do. That will cost two or three pounds."

A look into my bag gives me confidence. "I have left five pounds, so that will do it!” I take out the fiver and crinkle it between my two hands. Sherlock steps closer to eye the piece of paper.

"What is this?"

"That's five pounds! Here, you see," I tap onto the paper with one of my fingers, "Five, and here Elisabeth the second."

"Who?"

"The Queen! Damn it."

"What Queen?"

"Holmes! The Queen of…," I realize my mistake, "New Guinea!" wresting the money from him, to hide the bill again in my wallet. Insecure I raise my head. "I guess you don't do credit cards in 1887?"


	4. Chapter 4

Holmes sighs, walks to his desk to get some odd looking papers out of it. The money, people are using back in 1887.

"Mrs. Hudson, take this. Get her away, and only come back when she looks like a normal person."

Mrs. Hudson softly touches my arm to guide me out of the room. After handing me a raincoat to keep me covered from suspicious looks we go of to find a store, where I can buy new cloth.

It takes three hours, mostly because she still wants to talk me into some very female gown. Resisting, I finally buy some brown cotton trousers, a white shirt and a brown cotton west. It's been completed by some brown leather boots and a hat. A bonnet Mrs. Hudson calls it and she adamants to buy a hat.

"It doesn't matter if you are young or old, a woman or a man, poor or rich. A hat is what you need!" Fine for me, I think and look into a head high mirror. I look like a well-paid stable lad. Seeing me this way makes me snicker at myself. The sales assistant eyes me as I would be very weird, but we pay him good money, so he keeps quiet.

When we return to Baker Street it's around four o'clock in the afternoon. Mrs. Hudson sends me upstairs alone, telling me she would bring up dinner soon. I walk to the door, knocking. After I don't hear any sound, I shyly enter the room. Holmes sits by his desk reading some papers. Presumably he is doing some research. I am not sure if he has heard me entering, so I place my old cloth - packed in brown paper - with vigour onto the table. He smirks without lifting his head.

"So you found something."

"Yes I did. Mrs. Hudson is disappointed I think," I just say.

"Why?"

"Deduce," I speak out in cockiness.

Finally he raises his head, surveying me for a moment. He hums with a severe look.  
"I see," then he turns back to his work.

While I walk around the sofa to seat myself down into the armchair, I see him smile, in the corner of my eye, and just a whiff of a moment long.  
“I am completely "SHERLOCKED", as it seems,” I say more to myself, smirking over the thought.

An hour later Mrs. Hudson comes up to serve dinner. As I have expected he does not eat a lot. So there is more for me, because after all the events of the day, I am starving.

After dinner Sherlock goes back to his studies and some experiments. He does not talk to me, and I mind myself to keep quiet too. To pass time, I think over my situation and how all this could happen. By now I am convinced that I am conscious, awake and not dead. This is reality and somehow I have made a leap in time. After this I grab for a book, but I am not able to read a full sentence without drifting away into thoughts about my misery. Indignant I clap the book shut loudly. Sherlock shrugs and his eyes are punishing me with fretful looks.

"I will go to bed," I just say, "Good night."

I walk upstairs into the room that once belonged to Doctor John Watson. Mrs. Hudson had put clean sheets on the bed, and I can find a long white nightdress upon the bed. I doff of my new cloth and slip over the nightdress. I am sure I look ridiculous, but who cares. I lie myself into the bed, and soon drift of to a dreamless sleep.

 

A noise from downstairs wakes me up in the morning. There is no watch in the room, so I can only guess. The look through out of the window tells me that it's maybe eight or nine o'clock. I turn around a few times under my blanket, unwilling to stand up, but the noise I hear from downstairs is very persistent. Holmes is playing the violin.

"Gosh!"

After trying to overhear the oblique pitch for a couple of minutes, I give up. I stand up and refresh myself with the water I can find in a bowl on the nightstand. Then I dress myself and walk downstairs.

"Good morning."

Holmes stands by the window, fiddling with his instrument. When he recognises my attendance he turns around.

"Ah! Good morning! Have you slept well?"

I can see, that Mrs. Hudson already has served breakfast, so I sit down at the table.

"Indeed, I have. Till someone woke me up, with an extraordinary talent in fiddling a violin," I say a bit grumpy.

"Ha! Breakfast is ready," he puts the violin away and seats himself at the other side of the table.

I can't come upon his good mood. "It seems you have slept well, too."

"Hardly," he pours himself in a cup of coffee. "You have to hurry with breakfast, I am sorry to say."

"Why?"

He gives me as short grin joined by one risen finger. "Client."

"Client? Alright, I hurry up, and then I leave again."

I can't disguise that I am disappointed. Naturally I had hoped for a little adventure. Who hasn't in my position? I don't make a secret out of my mood, why should I, but I keep quite with words, and start to eat.

Holmes drinks his coffee in quick gulps and he earns questioning looks from me. He smiles and cusps his mouth for a second before standing up, to walk over to his desk. I can hear him writing something, an envelope as it seems, because he has one in his hand, when he makes large steps to the door. “Mrs. Hudson!”

While waiting for her, he starts searching for something in his papers around the room. “Ah!” he says when he finds a much larger envelope.

He shoves the smaller one in it and writes a short note onto the bigger one before sealing it.

“You changed your mind about breakfast?” Mrs. Hudson shows up in the room.

Sherlock gives her a grimace and then he takes her arm, to lead her back to the door. “Would you be so bland to send this envelope to my lawyer? Thank you.” He gives her the envelope and shuts the door before she can say anything.

I have finished my breakfast over this little episode, so I stand up and place my folded napkin on my dish.

"No. Stay," surprisingly Sherlock says.

"I beg you pardon?" I simply can't imagine, that he wants me to stay for a client.

"You are a writer."

I freeze. Instantly I watch my fingers. Typing on computers does not leave ink on the fingertips. "How do you know?"

"It is absurdly simple."

"It is always absurdly simple when you have explained it. Just say!"

"Yesterday evening you wandered around in the room. You stopped by the desk, and glanced down the pens and the quill. Once you put it in your hand, to see how it feels to write with it. A habit only a writer can evolve. Today, when you entered the room, your looks wandered around again to the pens and the papers. You have considered asking me for a pen and paper - a writer."

My both hands I raise in exaltation. "Ha! Yes! So very yes!"

"So after my dear friend Watson is not available at present, I think you can proof your talent."

I am blown away by this opportunity. "You dignify me with your proposal. There is nothing I would like to do more. To capture one of Sherlock Holmes adventures. However I not want to betray Doctor Watson commitment."

"I am very sure, Doctor Watson would say, you are very square. Regrettably he is not here, and I think he will be delighted that someone stepped into his part to capture this story. I said it once and I will say it again. I am lost…"  
"… without my Boswell!" I finish for him, and a bright smile spreads out on my face. Sherlock Holmes gives me a gentle smile, then he takes up his violin again and steps back to the window.

"Would you mind not playing-," the noise that starts again is now no more a noise. It's a sweet perfect balanced sound of music and I am once more amazed. A certainty overcomes me. "Uh, you just played that awful pitch to wake me up, didn't you?"

Turning for a short moment into my direction, he just keeps fiddling, underlined with a short accentuation of his both eyebrows. His way to tell me; I am right.


	5. Chapter 5

I do not know this man. I never have, and I never will. The only one I know is a fictional character out of a novel, out of television and cinema. Someone who does not exists in the real world. But he does. He is Holmes, the way he looks, the way he talks. Till right now, everything agrees with my own expectations. Though it doesn't change the fact that (in my life and time existing) he can't be. A dispute. Something my brain is not able to handle.

"Who is your client?" I ask him over his music.

He nods to a piece of paper on the desk behind me. A telegram. The short messages service of its time. It is the first I see in my live.

""Immense urgency. A life in danger.  
Need to audition expeditious. E. Huntsville""

"Arrived three-quarters of an hour ago. She will be here any minute," Sherlock tells me.

"She? You know her?"

"No. Mrs. Hudson - an underappreciated fount of knowledge - helped me out. The Huntsville's are not a rich but a well-off family. Esther and Charles Huntsville. A lawyer. Ah, here the cartridge lets see what she has to say."  
The doors downstairs opens up and shortly after that Mrs. Hudson enters to bring in a well-dressed and sonsy looking lady.

"Mrs. Charles Huntsville, Mister Holmes," the housekeeper introduces her, and then takes the tablet with my breakfast away.

Holmes stands up, like the manners of the times say so. I intend to do the same, and earn a quick side-glance of him with a touch of his hand on my shoulder, that pushes me gentle but firmly down back into the chair.

"Mrs. Huntsville, I see you came in a haste to me. You left quickly after you have sent off the telegram, but you got caught in the rush-hour traffic what explains your delay," Holmes takes the telegram from my hands, "a life in danger. So please, sit down. Pray! So we can see if we can safe your husbands life."

I can see the astonishment in Mrs. Huntsville's face, and now I know how I have looked after Sherlock's deduction. It is indeed an amusing sight.

"Mister Holmes!" she suits herself onto the sofa. "Each word you spoke is true. How do you know about all this and how do you know about my husband? I even haven't known it myself before this morning."

Holmes smirks. "Your coat is button up wrong, what tells me you where in a hurry this morning. The ink on your glove on the right forefinger is telling me, you wrote something. This telegram. Why would your write with your gloves on, if not you wanted to be here quickly and just have written this to give me a little forewarning. So you wrote it, already dressed and ready to leave your house. This telegram arrived 45 minutes before you, what tells me, induced through the time of the day, you have been stuck in the traffic."

In contrast to Mrs. Huntsville I try to hide my ardour, glancing at her, to check back Sherlock's observations.

"Yes, you are right. And my husband?"

"The medallion around your neck, it's over your coat and not closed. These kinds of medallions are mostly containing a picture of an inamorato (beloved). In your case your husband. You have looked at it on the way over here. Conclusion; it’s your husband you are worried for."

"Oh, Mister Holmes, my heart its racing. I am so anxious about Charles. When I woke up in the morning and he was missing, the only expedient I saw was you."

Seeing Mrs. Huntsville so disturbed is making me feel sorry for her, even I have not heard what has happened. Suddenly I remember my remit. I turn around to grab a pencil and a piece of paper, so I am able to write down some facts. Mrs. Huntsville glances over to me. I can see that she tries to place my person and my doing somewhere.

"Do not worry about her, Mrs. Huntsville. She is reliable as much as Doctor Watson is. Sadly, he is not here for today, and she will keep up his good work as my chronicler and companion."

Holmes premature praise makes me blush. I stare at him with open mouth, but he does not return my glances, so I turn back to Mrs. Huntsville and give her a bland nod.

"So pray, Mrs. Huntsville. From the beginning please, word by word, as much details you can afford," he says, closing his eyes and laying his hands together in front of him.

"It started yesterday evening. I was already in the bedchamber - it was around ten - making myself ready for bed. My husband normally joins me around eleven. He has the habit to take a late walk around nine. For mostly an hour."

"So he did yesterday?"

"Yes. He left the house at nine, said to me good night in the case, I would be in bed already when he comes back, and left with his umbrella in his hands. This time however he returned earlier than usual. He might was gone for half an hour, maybe a little longer. I was in the piano-room when I heard the door and of course surprised by his early return. Charles seemed to be nervous and harried. He denied it but a woman knows her husband, Mister Holmes. He excused himself that he had forgotten to look over some very important papers for work the next day. He said, he had remembered while he was on his walk, so he had turned around in a hurry."

"Did he say something else?"

"No, he wished me again goodnight and left into his working room. So I went upstairs to the bedchamber. At half past ten I heard voices from downstairs."

"How many voices?"

"Two. My husbands and a voice I have never heard before. It sounded like a discussion, so I stood up again to see what was going on. Indeed my husband was involved in a heated up discussion with another man. I didn't understand much, because my husband expelled him out of the house. What I understood was something like;

""You have to do it, Charles! You swore an oath! Without you I am lost!""

It seemed that this man needed something from Charles. I went downstairs, and asked him who the man was and what he wanted. Charles told me, it was one of his clients, whose brother was going to get hanged for a murder he had done. That he and his office had done everything they could, but the case was clear and this the brother could not accept, so he had tried to convince my husband a bit harshly to look over the case again."

"A lie."

"Yes, Mister Holmes, I am sure now it was one. But I believed him and went back to bed. How stupid to fall asleep, how stupid to believe him!" she pauses for a moment to get hold of herself, "In the morning I woke up, and he was gone. The bed untouched."

"Can you describe the man?"

"A tall man. Well dressed. The same age as my husband, so I think. Dark hair. A moustache. And a scarf."

"A scarf?"

"Yes, I remember it clearly. In his face on his left cheek."

"Very mysterious. What did you do, before you came here?"

"I searched the house, but Charles was missing. His hat and coat with him. I found an empty glass of port in the piano room where the fireplace is. That's all."

"Is he maybe gone for another walk?"

"No, Mister Holmes, he would never do that without telling me. Besides, he has not slept in his bed. And the story about the papers he had remembered while his walk before - Charles is a very assiduous man, never this would happen to him. I can't remember one day, he has forgotten something about his work. I thought about it, and I think something else happened while he was outside."

"Exactly what I think, Mrs. Huntsville!" Holmes stands up, pointing in her direction, but looking at me. "Two questions left. When your husband returned from his walk, did he bring his umbrella back?"

For a moment her forehead wrinkles, she is trying to remember the picture of her husband, returning home. "Now you say it, I haven't seen it on him nor in the cradle."

"What route your husband takes when he takes his evening walks?"

“There is a nice alley near our house. Cotton Road. With some nice little shops on each side. As far as I know he walks on the left side of the street up, till New-Humberland-Road, and on the other side he walks back. So he told me once. When you dilly-dally your way, it takes around an hour. I walk the way sometimes myself."

"I know the place, yes,” he steps to her, giving her a hand to stand up. "May I?" he asks and reaches for the medallion. The inside, as I can see from my place, reveals a photograph of a young man. Holmes hums over it, and from my experience I have the feeling he just noticed something important.

"Return to your home, Mrs. Huntsville, we will follow you in an instant. I want to take a look into your rooms."

"Yes, Mister Holmes. Thank you so much. Do you think Charles is in danger?"

"The possibility consists. You did wise to come here." With these words he sends her home.

"Watson, come on!" he suddenly calls out, dashing into his room. "Get your things! I have the urgent feeling, that Mister Huntsville is in deep disagreeableness."

"Watson?" I whisper out, and shake my head to his reference. Before I can correct him, he runs down the stairs, and I follow him without questioning.

I find myself in a horse-drawn carriage unable to put the pieces together I just have heard.

"Do you know where he is?"

"No, I don't. However I have an hypothesis what might have happened."

"You won't tell me?"

"Not yet. First we have to make some researches."

I spare myself the plea to know more. So this is how Watson feels I think and lean back into the carriage, observing 1887.


	6. Chapter 6

After a 15 minutes drive we stop, and Sherlock jumps out and vanishes in one of the small side streets that go along with the significant broader street we just parked. I jump out myself to look for him.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!" I can hear a clatter behind some wooden boxes. Holmes races up and down the small alley, apparently searching for something. His eyes attentively dart around. Here and there his hands push away some boxes and bushes. Then he runs past me, down the street to the next alley. I sign the driver to follow us and try to catch up with him. He is in better shape and has the longer legs, so I have trouble to follow. Out of my breath, my hands on my thighs I wait at the entrance to the small street. Again I hear him clatter.

"What for God sake, are you looking for?"

"Ha!" he calls out and comes back to me, a broken umbrella in his hand.

"The umbrella," I say.

He raises the umbrella to my comment and is giving me a jubilant smile while passing me.

"Come on!" he jumps back into the carriage, and the driver is moving off without waiting for me to sit down completely. I bang my head, and almost swear the worst words the 21st century has thought me.

The next station we stop is the house of Mister and Mrs. Huntsville. She is already awaiting us and Sherlock enters apace. First he whirls around a few times in the hallway, then he heads directly to the piano room.

"Did you move anything?"

"No, Mister Holmes."

While Holmes makes his investigations, I stand by the door, and try to adapt his methods. I check for possible footprints on the carpet. Dropped candle wax. Moved objects in the room. Inhaling the smell in the room. All these things I know form the novels, and all this things exert normal to me. The only thing I can really see is the glass on the desk beside the armchair and a bottle of port or brandy.

Holmes crawls hither and thither over the carpet in front of the fireplace. A magnifying glass in his hand, he checks different little details I am not able to see from my place.

"Was there a fire in the fireplace?" The question just pops up in my head and without thinking I ask it.

"Yes."

Holmes, kneeling on the carpet, is looking at me. My - so it seems to me - naïve question has drawn his attention to me. His eyes are sparkling, and I can see the fine laughter lines around his crimped mouth. He is keen to know where I am going with my question.

"What do you make of it?" he impels me.

I think about all the details I know and try to put them together. "He goes for a walk. Something is happening while he takes his evening stroll."

"Not something." Holmes corrects me. “Someone.”

"Someone. The umbrella was broken. Maybe he self defended himself. A burglar maybe," I think out loud.

"Why deny a burglar? Why come back home when the next constable is surely not far away."

“If it was not a burglar, why defense himself?”

“A palpability. Not a burglar, someone he knew."

"The man, who followed him home."

"Correct!" Holmes hisses. "He throws him out of the house. The man wants something. They know each other. The use of words is telling us this. """"You have to do it Charles!"""""

"Charles.. I mean Mister Huntsville - he refuses. The man gets angry, but he leaves. What then?"

Sherlock rises, slipping into Huntsville’s behavior, to show us what he has done the night before.

"Huntsville is churned up, so he drinks some port wine to calm his nerves. He paces up and down, you can see it on the carpet, and you can smell the spilled wine. He thinks about something. He is shaken. Minute by minute, hours go by. Here the wax of the candle, it’s fresh," he taps on the ledge, "then, he leaves."

"Where he goes?" I call out tensely.

"The fire!" again he kneels down, observing the ash. It takes just some seconds, till he pulls out a piece of burned paper from the fire pit, "as I assumed it."

"What is it?" both Mrs. Huntsville and I call out loud.

He inspects the paper and hums a view times. I can see it's burned on the sites when he hands it over to me. Apparently this was once a larger piece of paper, a note, thrown into the fire. There are just a few words left I am able to read.

""""Pi.. lub"""", """"1200"""", """"old oak""""

The rest the fire has eaten. Sherlock stands now silent in the room, his eyes starring into the nothing. Mrs. Huntsville is so taut that she grabs my arm so hard it hurts.

"Mister Holmes!" I lay my hand on hers, to calm her down and sign her to be quite.

A few seconds go by and then in a sudden a joggle goes through Holmes solid figure. Both of his hands are stretching away from him, fingers spread. His eyes open wide and a moan escapes his mouth. A solution.

"What time is it?"

"Twenty minutes to twelve," I read from the long case clock behind him. "What is it?"  
I can feel fear and imminent danger.

"Quick!" he calls out, bolting out of the room. "Lives are at stake!"

Mrs. Huntsville and I are gazing at each other than I grab her arm and shove her to the door. We follow Holmes to the carriage and hop in.

"Lincoln's Inn Field corner Newman's Row. Ride like the devil!" he yells his orders to the driver. Sherlock breathes heavy and his body language shows great anticipation.

"Your Husband has studied in Cambridge, is this correct?"

"Yes. Yes."

"Then we better hope we reach the park on time. A life is in danger. Like you assumed it, Mrs. Huntsville."

"By God, Mister Holmes, what is the matter for all this?"

"Later!"


	7. Chapter 7

The driver spurs his horses and one or two times I have the feeling my stomach will rebel. It is a wonder that we reach the park a few minutes before twelve and that the cabin is still in one piece. Holmes rushes out, ensued by us. Lincoln's Inn Field is a park, planted with a mass of trees. When I see the large trees around me I remember the word on the paper. ""Oak""

"Here they are!" Sherlock calls, pointing out with his walking stick to a group of people by a large oak, 70 yards away. All of us are running over the lawn.

"Stop it!" Sherlock yells. "Stop your affair of honour! Police is on the way!"

I do not understand a word, but when I realize the situation, the puzzle puts itself together. Two men - both having a gun in their hands, taken out of a wooden box. The other hand is strapped behind the back. A duel. Each one of the competitors has one assistant. Then there is the one man carrying the pistol box and one man who seems to be the conciliator.

The smaller man with one of the guns in his hand looks over to us and sees Mrs. Huntsville. "Esther," instantaneous he walks over. "How you came here?"

He drops his pistol to the ground, and pulling her into his arms. "Oh, Charles!"

"Huntsville!" the second armed man cries in anger, walking over to us. "I want my duel! Now! Or shall I shoot you here?"

Sherlock Holmes reaction is quick as lightning, and now I know why an agile man like him carries around a walking stick. The stick dashes down apace and thrashes the armed hand. The man cries out in pain while the pistol is falling to the ground.

"When you do, you swing for it!" Sherlock warns him and picks up the gun. He gestures me over. "Here, when he tries to run, shoot."

I take the gun in my hands, it is a heavy old-fashioned metal one, and I am scared. Sherlock can see the concerns in my eyes, and claps me encouraging on my shoulders.

"Mister Huntsville, I presume."

"Yes Sir, may I ask who you are?"

"I am Sherlock Holmes, your wife came to me in the morning for consultation. She thought, after your mysterious disappearance, that a life is at stake. Well, she was right, we can see this here."

"There has to be a misunderstanding," Mister Huntsville says for my surprise.

Sherlock gives him a deliberate smile. "My companion here and your wife are eager to know how it could come so far, so I will summarise the events since yesterday. I am sure, except of one or two little facts, my deductions are correct. First of all, I would like to know your name, so I can address you correctly," Sherlock turns to the man I guard with the pistol.

"Why shall I say it?" he answers harshly.

"Mister Huntsville, would you step in please?"

"Huntsville!" the man calls out, but Holmes stretches out his stick again as a warning.

"Henry Foggerty."

"I saw the picture of you in your wife’s medallion. When you look close you can see a ribbon on your left shoulder on it. You are a member of a students' fraternity. The Pitt Club. The membership is for life. Each one of you is obliged to the other. For help or business contacts. The man you saw last night, Mrs. Huntsville, Henry Foggerty, also is associated in this club. The scarf in his face, you told me about it," Sherlock walks over to Foggerty and shows us all the scarf on his cheek. "Some of these fraternities have fraternity pledging’s. Two men fight against each other with an epee. The aim is to give weals to each other. Am I so far correct?"

"Oh yes, you are." Huntsville admits.

"Your husband left the house to make his evening stroll. After around fifteen minutes he gets into the confrontation with Mister Foggerty here. They have a little brawl; maybe he tries to cow him. I am not sure what it is, but I think he wanted your help - ignoble and illegal. Nevertheless, you insist, you will not do it. Foggerty pushes you, grabs your umbrella and tries to scare you. Someone sees you, interrupts you."

"A constable did his patrol."

"You hurry home, sending your wife to bed, with a cheap lie. Foggerty has followed you home. Again you both have an argument. This is the moment you, Mrs. Huntsville, came down. Before you throw him out, he gives you this piece of paper", Holmes reaches into his pocket and shows him the remains of the message. "Most of it was burned by the fire. However, I already presumed, that Foggerty and you know each other from some kind of fraternity. You studied in Cambridge, so it only could be the Pitt Club. Duels are still very popular around fraternities, 1200 had to be a time and the only oak in a range of five miles is here in Lincoln's Inn Field."

"Yes, Mister Holmes, you are right! I am a Lawyer, as you surely know. Foggerty and I, we studied together in Cambridge. He had always some kind of wickedness in him. After graduation I forgot about him, until last night. He told me about his brother, who spends right now time in custody for being an alleged thief. It appeared that my co-lawyer represents the victim. Foggerty wanted the case file. I guess to cow the victim. Of course I denied, but he was resistant and followed me home. He was beside oneself with rage. He remembered me to my oath. He threatened my wife and me. The duel seemed to be the only change to get rid of the problem. I thought about it almost all night. I left at dawn to make arrangements. A duel always needs two adjutants, the carrier of the guns and one magistrate. It is an prescribed ritual as you can see."  
“Charles, you can't imagine how scared I was when I realized your absence! Why this duel? What for? You could have died!” Mrs. Huntsville almost cries in her anger.

“I know, my dear. It was stupid of course, but after he came to me to tell me what he would do to you, I was blinded,” Huntsville turns to Holmes. “Thanks to you, Mister Holmes, you have forestall this act of foolery.”

Sherlock bends mere an inch. “Do not thank me. Thank your wife; she had the right sense and the highest sensibility to do what had to be done in a situation like this. I think Mister Henry Foggerty here will now have an appointment over at the police station. I remind you, Mister Huntsville, you shall do the same, to keep your hands clean from dirt. Duels are illegal, yet your motive and Foggertys threatening will preserve you from worse. You are a lawyer; you will know what to do.”

“Yes, I know what to do. When you don't mind, Sir, I will take care of Mister Foggerty at once,” he frees me from the gun, and I am sighting happily to have this burden away. “Good day.”

A minute long I follow them with my eyes, smiling about all the events and turnarounds and of course Sherlock's glamorous final. When I turn around I can see him looking at me. I give him the brightest smile I have. Throwing my hands in the air I call out; “this was a doozie! I am blown away!” the feeling I have is like an inner burst, “Fuc… antastic!”

“It was absurdly simple in the end,” how he speaks the words, as if he just had commented a cup of tea. Sherlock Holmes - master of understatement.

“Like always. Yet you saved lives.”

Instead of answering me, he takes out his pocket watch. “I think its time for lunch, don't you think so?”

I agree, and we leave the park to go back to Baker Street. While we are sitting in the carriage I can see that he starts to get restless. The case was in the end, not a real challenge for a Sherlock Holmes. His mind is not pleased.

“You have any other cases at hand?”

“One or two small disagreeableness, nothing in particular.”  
The way he says it, is telling me he wants to be alone with his thoughts, so I keep quite the rest of the way, only glancing over to him a few times, to remember his figure clearly when I write down this adventure.


	8. Chapter 8

It’s around two o’clock when we enter Baker Street. Without a word he walks upstairs and I have the feeling something is wrong. When I follow him, I can hear him in his room. Unsure what to do, I keep standing at the door.

“Is there something wrong?” I ask loudly.

He does not answer me, but I am sure he has heard me. I decide to wait and to stay where I am. After a couple of minutes he returns. He has changed his dress into a looser shirt and a dressing gown. I still stand there and watch him stuff a pipe and then igniting it. Like a wet bag he slumps himself into the armchair. Just when I want to clear my throat to bring his attention to me, he answers.

“I am not sure.”

His answer seems very cryptic to me. “Can I do..”

“No,” ungraciously he cuts me off.

It is the first time, since I have arrived here, that I feel hurt in my feelings. Wrongly, I assume. I have no right to be here. Holmes allows me to stay here, he has allowed me to participate in one of his adventures and I can count myself lucky due to this. A few more moments I watch him inhaling the smoke from the pipe, before I vanquish myself to step further into the room. Looking down to the sofa, I realize the paper wrapped package on the little table, and my jacket still hanging over the armrest. I grab my things, to take them to my room, but before I leave I turn around once more.

“In my World, People think you are fiction, though I think, a lot of people would like to switch with me now. Even if it was not a fulfilling case for you, I enjoyed it a lot. I am sure I will not forget it.” I say the words quick and with lack of confidence. His reaction some minutes ago had made me insecure.

A half second before I reach for the doorknob his words are stopping me. “In the carriage, a feeling has befallen me that, this will go to an end.”

“This?”

“Your appearance here,” two single smoke circles waft through the room. “I have to admit, your stay here is a delicate case of it’s own. Myself was intended to examine it slightly more,” his words, that I will leave soon irritating me, so I stay silent. “Your presence was a nice variety,” he adds.

His words enliven me up and I give him a slight smile. “Thank you.”

“And now,” he points with his pipe to the door I am standing, “you have a story to write! Quickly, before you will forget the details!”

“Yes, indeed, I have,” I turn to the door, reaching for the knob, but then I turn around one more time, finding Sherlock already in another world. Somewhere in his mind palace. I smirk about it, and open the door to hurry up to my room.

Confusion. Irritation. It is not the floor of Baker Street 221b I am standing now. It is the threshold of my front door. I turn around, sure to see Sherlock sitting in his armchair, but the only thing I see is the inner of the house I am living in.

“What-,” turning around a few times, I try to find out what just has happened. Some meters I walk down the foot-walk to look where I am and if it’s really my house I am standing in front. It is. I do not understand.

A couple of minutes I stand in there in the garden, staring at it, still holding the packed package in my hand.

“God damn it, there you are! We waited for you! What happened?” it’s the voice of my friend, the friend I was supposed to meet at the cinema. She comes closer, watching me for moment.  
“What is going on? Why are you standing here staring around like some alien ship just has landed in your front yard?”

“I… I… don’t know.”

“Gee, we waited for you at the cinema, what happened?” she scrutinizes me from tip to toe, frowning at me.

“I am sorry, I... was late,“ I am unable to say anything better than nonsense to her.

“What ever. You didn’t miss anything, the movie was really bad!” she huffs dramatically. “Would you please tell me, what the hell you are wearing? Is there any Cosplay going on you didn’t tell me about?”

“Cosplay?” I remember my ‘new’ cloth. “Oh! Yes, no! Yes,” I call out keyed up, “1887. Ya, know.”

“1887? What kind of Cosplay is that?”

"Uhm…," luckily the mailman interrupts us by entering the lawn. He greets us with a smile before handing me a small bulk of envelopes and commercial papers.

When he is gone I turn to my friend again. I am glad she is here and that she was worried about me, but right now I want to be alone. There is still too much I have to figure out now.

"Listen, I am really sorry because of the movie, next time I won’t be late. Now I have to go," I say while I am already walking back to the door.

She gives me an anxious look; fortunately she says nothing more than goodbye and leaves.

The last steps to my door I almost run. Just ten minutes ago I was in Baker Street and now I am back home, as if nothing ever had happened. Quickly I race upstairs to my bedroom. There, finally I discard the package I have carried around all the time. Placing it on the bed sitting myself beside it, one hand resting loosely on it. My eyes glancing down to the brown leather boots I am wearing. They and the rest of my cloth are telling me, that the events of the last 24 hours were real. While I look down to the floor I realize I still have the mail of today in my hands. Like usual I leaf through it.

My heart skips a beat. Between all the commercials and bank letters, there it is. The one envelope I know. The one I have seen just a few hours ago. Light blue. Handwritten. Very old Victorian like handwritten. It has my name on it and my address. My lungs stop to breath. The despatchers name.

"Sherlock Holmes,” I whisper.

The rest of the mail falls to the floor while I quickly open the envelope. Yes, it is his handwriting, the one I remember from the papers laying around in 221b.

""""If my calculations are correct, this letter will receive you the day you have vanished from your time to step inside the halls of Baker Street. Nearly 125 years ago - from your side of view. I am very sorry to tell, but the moment you went of to bed I took possession of your smartphone. """"

Instantly I grab into my pockets. The phone is still off. I am confused. While the phone starts I read on.

""""I left you some kind of message on it.""""

“You did what?” I call out to the paper.

The phone beeps to tell me its ready to be unlocked. When I see my lock screen I can’t help myself, I just have to laugh. It is the famous lock screen from the television show.

I told him everything a man like Sherlock Holmes needs, to hack into my smart phone, the moment I woke up on this sofa.

""I am **** locked"" stands there and I enter the missing words.  
"" I am SHER locked "". How absurdly simple.

Sherlock has seen me, using my phone, how I have slid my finger over the screen. For a moment I try to put myself into his place, back in 1887. There was no possibility to make a call or surf the Internet so I don’t have to be afraid of an exorbitant telephone bill. Anyhow I scroll through my messages and phone calls - I have shortcuts on my home screen for it. It appears to me how useless a smart phone is without any connection to a mobile network. The only thing you can do is to use it as a camera.  
Of course; the camera. I press the shortcut and navigate myself into the camera menu. From there I easily find the way to the gallery.

Exactly what Sherlock must have done. The gallery is full with pictures I didn’t take. The first attempts are blurry and shaky, but then I notice some items from Baker Street. The room. A pipe. The fireplace. A foot.

The last file I can find is a video file. I swallow. I am afraid. My whole body starts to shake and I am not sure why. I press play. Sherlock.

“An absurdly simple codeword you have there! It is already early morning and it seems this thing needs some kind of energy so I will make it short. If I am right, this thing will record now every word I say and even every picture. I would like to keep it but I am not a thief and after the energy is gone, I assume this gadget will be useless for me. It was not so easy to understand the inner working of this machine, nevertheless you can see, I did well. In case you should wonder how the letter – I have not send it yet – was able to reach you; your address is written inside this thing. You have a large collection of telegrams discarded here too, and the last date was the twenty first March 2013. The day you disappeared and hopefully will go back after a while.”

He pauses for a moment and I can see that he thinks about his last words he wants to direct at me. A short smile flickers over his face. In the background I can see the window. Dawn is coming.

“I experienced the future. A tiny bit of it, and I am belied I cannot come with you. Nevertheless like 1887 is not your time, the year 2013 would not be mine. Good Day.”

There the video ends. I watch it once more, just to be sure that it is not only my imagination, which produces these pictures. If I wasn’t stunned for the last 24 hours, I would it be now. Sherlock Holmes leaving me a message on my smartphone, how grotesque is that? Deeply I inhale the air around me before I switch back to the letter. It is written in a different colour of ink so I assume he wrote this part later, maybe after I have left him.

""""Three weeks went by since you disappeared again. I couldn’t tell Watson about it and I urged Mrs. Hudson to keep this little episode as a secret. Time is a dangerous thing to play with, so it is all for our best not to mention it to anyone. Unfortunately this little episode will not find its way into Doctor Watson’s chronicles. It was not a considerable one, anyway. However I appreciated your work as my for-a-limited-period-of-time companion, you did well.  
Good luck to you. Sincerely, Sherlock Holmes. London 1887.""""

Carefully I shove the paper back into the envelope, my fingertips stroke over the old paper. I am not sure how he did it, there are only vague speculations in my head. The only thing I know is, that he did it. Sherlock Holmes wrote me a letter 120 years ago. After I have slipped out of my timeline, after I have experienced a adventure with one of the greatest consulting detectives – if not the only one – who ever has lived. This I will never understand. Not the reasons, nor the how’s and why’s.

Nevertheless, an encounter I will never forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you did like it and maybe you want to leave a comment or a kudo. Would be a nice feedback. I am open to critics and if you think I made some heavy mistake please point out.


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